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IBM to co-op with Azerbaijan's High Tech Park

6 March 2015 16:00 (UTC+04:00)
IBM to co-op with Azerbaijan's High Tech Park

By Nigar Orujova

The American company IBM may cooperate with High-Tech Park of the Azerbaijani Communications and High Technologies Ministry.

IBM CEO in Azerbaijan, Ilya Kravtsov said the company has various systems of interaction with technology parks and universities to develop the academic environment as well as support specialist and start-ups, etc.

"There is no doubt that the cooperation with the High-Tech Park will take place, we will work in this regard and see what can be done," he said.

Azerbaijan’s IT market is very promising, even though the country experienced some difficulties in view of a sharp drop in oil prices, a decrease in demands and the devaluation of its currency, he went on to say.

"The main difference in between Azerbaijani market and other countries in the region is its potential and growth rates performance, as demonstrated over the past 10 years. Azerbaijan’s increased three times over the past decade, a phenomenon which has not been observed in any of the other Central Asian countries,” Kravtsov said.

IBM CEO said: “The certain slowdowns in the market, which have been recorded in the past year, have their objective reasons. But in general, I positively assess our ability to grow and confident that we will be able to increase our presence in the market."

The focus of IBM in the Azerbaijani market, he stressed, will be placed on competence in the field of software, increase of cooperation with the banking, telecommunications and the public sector.

The corporation opened its official representation in Azerbaijan on March 5.

The company will focus toward the expansion of business in Azerbaijan. The IBM specialists will provide service maintenance and technical support.

On this connection, Elmir Velizade, Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of communications and high technologies noted the importance of IBM’s decision, the world's largest vendor.

He believes IBM’s arrival on the Azerbaijani market will play an important role in the development of the national ICT sector.

“We are interested in such participation and collaboration in between our Azerbaijani specialists and the company, and we believe IBM will also play an important role in the formation of an e-government in the country as well as the development of technological and human potential of the republic,” he said.

Local IBM representation expands the range of products that the company can offer. These are software and hardware systems, software solutions, analytical systems, mobile systems and technologies of “cloud” computing. Azerbaijan is now interesting in the expansion of its IT sector, and plans to increase its revenues. By 2019, revenues from the ICT sector are expected to increase by 33.5 percent and exceed 2.12 billion manats.

Dynamic growth of the market in the next years is expected as follows: in 2015, the growth is projected at 9.8 percent, in 2016 at 19.8 percent, and 26.4 percent in 2017.

The country has established and has now constructed High Tech Parks in Baku and the country’s fourth largest city Mingachevir. Moreover, a business incubator center is functioning in the capital.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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